


All is still, the day is gone

by Aces_and_Roses



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Gen, Illusions, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Singing, i don't know how bardic magic works and at this point i'm too afraid to ask
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:14:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23896636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aces_and_Roses/pseuds/Aces_and_Roses
Summary: Sasha Rackett didn’t sing. This surprised exactly no one who knew her even slightly, and was even less surprising to those who know her well. The thing that would surprise them, however, would be to find out that this hadn’t always been the case.
Relationships: Sasha Racket & Oscar Wilde
Comments: 18
Kudos: 77





	All is still, the day is gone

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song 'Hello Night' by Kesang Marstrand, since that's the song I was imagining Sasha singing as I wrote this

Sasha Rackett didn’t sing. This surprised exactly no one who knew her even slightly, and was even less surprising to those who know her well. The thing that _would_ surprise them, however, would be to find out that this hadn’t always been the case.

There was a song once, a long time ago. Sasha would be hard-pressed to remember the lyrics now, especially since she barely knew them back then. It didn’t matter, though, not really; Brock was just happy to hear her sing at all. It was soft, and slow, and soothing, so different from everything else in Other London. So out of place there that Sasha rarely found the courage to sing it. But sometimes, when Brock was particularly upset or scared, she did. Quietly, as quietly as she could, the melody dulling any of the sharpness that may otherwise be found in her voice.

The day she realized that Brock was gone, she swore she’d never sing it again. It was his song, after all. Then they found Mr. Ceiling, and she finally knew what had happened and she…

One night, as she sat on top of the pillars, knees hugged to her chest, she sang it again. She didn’t know what she’d expected to happen when she did. Perhaps she’d hoped that Brock would appear, whole and unharmed, as though his brain had never been taken to become a part of this _machine_? Perhaps she’d thought that the voice that started humming along would be Brock’s, _really_ Brock’s, and not the mechanical tones of Mr. Ceiling. Or perhaps she’d just hoped, wherever Brock was inside the machine, hearing it again would bring him some level of comfort.

In the end, they killed Mr. Ceiling, and she swore once more that she would never sing it again. Brock was gone, for good this time, so why would she?

But the thing is, back when she used to sing for Brock, he was her only family. Now, though…

She sings for Hamid when he wakes up from a nightmare, shaking so violently his teeth chatter.

She sings for Azu when she cries, when the weight of everything that’s happened, of everything they’ve done, becomes too much to bear.

She sings for Grizzop when he’s so restless he can’t sleep, everything in him screaming that he’s running out of time, that he needs to be _doing something_.

She sings for Zolf when he needs a distraction, anything to draw him out of the spiral, out of the emotions that threaten to consume him.

She sings for Cel when they feel like they’re sinking, the tide of thoughts and ideas and worries abruptly becoming too much to handle.

She sings for Wilde when he can’t sleep, when he feels as though he is failing everyone that has ever depended on him whenever he dares to take a break.

She doesn’t sing for herself. It hurts too much; simply a reminder of the days before everything had gone wrong, when she would sing just for the joy of it, though that had been a long, long time ago. A reminder of a time before her singing became something she so heavily associated with loss and sadness and fear.

That changed the day Wilde asked for her help. He didn’t need it, not really; he was just workshopping ideas for his illusions. One can only summon an enormous mechanical dragon so many times before word gets out that it isn’t real, he’d said. And he was perfectly capable of doing that on his own, she was well aware, but he knew how fascinating she found his illusions, so he’d asked her anyway.

It happened between illusions, while Wilde was resting his voice. Absently, Sasha muttered something about wishing she could do it too, how cool that would be. Wilde froze, shifting his gaze from the sky above them, where the last remnants of the airship he’d conjured dissipated, over to Sasha.

“Do you want to learn?” he asked, and Sasha would have thought he was messing with her if not for the complete sincerity of his tone.

“Could I?” she asked in return. “Don’t you have to be, like, well good at singing for that?”

Wilde just shrugged. “I doubt you’d be able to make anything quite as,” he gestured to the sky above them, “elaborate as this. Not without years of training, at least. But, if you wish, I could teach you to make more… minor illusions.” He looked away from Sasha once more, letting her mull it over without feeling scrutinized.

“Besides,” he continued, as it became clear that Sasha wasn’t going to respond right away, “I happen to think you’re singing is quite good.”

“I… I think I’d like that.”

They didn’t start right away; Wilde was far too tired for that. But within the week, he started teaching her the basics. How to feel the magic in the air around her, weave it into her words, use a song to make a thought into reality. And she does, first with small things - a firefly dancing through the air around Wilde’s head, a bat hovering over Sasha’s shoulder, shooting stars overhead - then larger - a bolt of lightning in the distance, or a fireworks display above their heads. Never much more than that, nothing nearly as extravagant as most of Wilde’s illusions, but she likes them, nonetheless.

And so, she sings for herself, for the first time in a very long time. She sings not because someone’s scared or upset, not in a clumsy attempt at comfort, but because she enjoys it. Instead, she sings because it makes her _happy_ , watching the illusions she conjures flutter around her. It makes her happy.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr at redactedquill


End file.
